


Thermoequilibrium

by WET_NOODLES



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: M/M, Post-Radiant Dawn, just two bros traveling to the far corners of distant lands and having a little jo sesh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 23:29:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11861889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WET_NOODLES/pseuds/WET_NOODLES
Summary: Ike and Soren take shelter from a storm.





	Thermoequilibrium

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tattedmariposa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tattedmariposa/gifts).



> For a request at my NSFW blog, can also be found [here](http://orgyland.tumblr.com/post/164421867034/ikesoren-4-ye-olde-otpe). I won't stop writing shitty Ikesoren until you come to my house and kill me yourself.

“Ike.”

From where he crouched before a fire, Soren watched as the puma slid from Ike’s shoulders to the ground with a thump.

“Sorry, it was the best I could do.”

Soren’s eyes settled over the outline of Ike’s hair, haloed with dull light. Beyond Ike’s bulk, through the mouth of the cave, the sheet gray overcast curdled into stormclouds, black and gravid. Soren should have been glad to see Ike out of the blizzard before it could really begin, but he hadn’t been the one to agree to the fool’s errand that had brought them to this frozen plateau in the first place. A ten day’s travel behind them lay the mill town of Zinna; there, word reached them of a fabled spring across the snowfields, an agent of dubious miracles for all who made its deadly pilgrimage.

(“We’ve gone through worse for less,” was all Ike had said with a shrug, before accepting the researcher’s sizeable advance.)

The carcass was slender with ghost-white fur, and though it looked unlike any large cat Soren had seen before, skinning and cleaning it felt vaguely cannibalistic. Still, there was enough meat there -- eerily pale and tender -- to feed eighteen men, or at least six Ikes. By the time their pot of melted snow came to a boil, the skies had darkened to the color of charcoal, and Soren pressed unconsciously closer into the stiff pelt slung over Ike’s shoulders. Noticing this just a beat too slow, Ike lifted his arm and drew Soren in.

“How long do you think it’ll last?” Ike said. His clothes were damp with sweat and snow, and he carried the unwashed reek of dirt and pine.

Soren turned his face into Ike’s side, and breathed. “Through the night, perhaps.”

“It’s probably late enough that we should just wait it out, huh.”

Soren made a small noise of assent, and a comfortable silence fell over them, the blizzard’s howl dampened by the cover of fallen snow. Only in moments like these did the world feel so empty and enormous to Soren, and he would retreat into arms that united empires and toppled goddesses until the loneliness subsided, and another mood, a shade warmer and more curious, came to replace it.

It began as easily and as comfortably as any routine, like the first lines of a remembered tome. Soren would lean back into the heat of Ike’s chest; thick fingers would curve around Soren’s jaw to tilt it back, while another hand would creep down the front of his collar, unclasping the top button.

“Ike...” The syllable was swallowed in a long, insistent kiss.

“Mm.”

“We,” Soren managed, his mouth hovering inches away from Ike’s, “We shouldn’t squander precious insulation.”

The hand around his jaw slackened, smoothing up against his cheek and forehead.

“You’re so cold, Soren,” Ike said, with a touch of that fond earnestness that never failed to wrench Soren’s guts. “Shouldn’t I share my body heat?”

Coming from anyone else, it would have come off as a tasteless advance. Coming from Ike, the question was unmistakably genuine.

“No one need disrobe for that, Ike,” said Soren. “That’s an old wive’s tale.”

“Huh, really?”

“Here.” Soren ignored him in a vain effort to salvage the mood, turning to face Ike. He slung one arm around Ike’s shoulder, wrapping his pelt around them like a blanket. “This is more efficient.”

Ike’s laughter was a little incredulous, but he followed suit, locking Soren in a close embrace.

“Like this?”

“Mm.” Soren rose to meet Ike with another kiss, his free hand settling on a broad thigh, and then nestling between Ike’s stomach and tunic. (Ike jumped a bit at the touch before settling into it -- Soren must really have been cold.)

And then that same hand trailed down to the front of Ike’s belt, working numb fingers over the clasp until Ike finally breaks their kiss to undo it himself. Cupping his palm between Ike’s legs, Soren fell again into the same effortless routine from before, comforting, almost grounding: Ike’s grip on his shoulder tightening as his thighs parted, almost imperceptibly; the strain in Ike’s breaths as Soren pressed another kiss to his jaw, and then his ear; the hot flesh stiffening in Soren’s hand as he built a steady rhythm, and then stilled.

“Like this,” he murmured into Ike’s neck. “I want to watch you. Show me exactly how you like it.”

He felt the throb of Ike’s swallow under his tongue, the heat of the flush that spread down to Ike’s chest, and finally Ike’s nod. They both followed the path of Ike’s hand as it enveloped Soren’s, and then replaced it.

Not that Soren didn’t know -- not that he hadn’t known for years -- exactly how Ike liked it, but it was a game of which neither of them tired, where every point of contact, every incidental brush of skin would light a fresh patch of nerves as though they hadn’t felt this a thousand times before. Soren’s eye caught on the motion of Ike’s arm between them, on his unfocused eyes, the pluming clouds of his erratic panting, his parted lips; it was somewhere between Ike’s display and Soren’s whispered encouragements, between the mounting heat in his guts and the taste of white puma on Ike’s breath, that Soren attended to his own need.

They were close enough to chafe each other’s knuckles, to encase their heat and moisture between their pelts -- close enough that it only made sense when Ike seized them both with a tan, broad hand, arrhythmic now, slickened and urgent. Soren tried to dig his fingers in Ike’s shoulder and found layers of pelt; Ike’s forehead was hot and tacky where it pressed against his brand. It wasn’t this that brought Soren to a head, nor was it Ike’s grip closing over his shoulder, or the soundless word-shapes Ike formed with his lips -- but Ike’s voice, when he finally found it, leaning in close to Soren’s ear.

“It’s,” Ike huffed, “It’s okay, Soren. Just like that.”

“Ike--” was all Soren could manage, that broken cry all at once a command, a warning, a question, as he felt himself spasm and come over Ike’s rough fingers. Ike followed moments later with a groan, coming in short, erratic fits, before slowing, and eventually stilling.

The dark winds filled the next silence that followed, as Soren contemplated how they were going to clean themselves. Eventually, he pulled away to dip a cloth in their pot of salted water.

“Uh, I can just wash it off in the snow.”

“Unacceptable,” Soren said. “Your hands would get cold. It defeats the entire purpose.”

“Purpose?” laughed Ike. “I wasn’t thinking about pragmatism, just now.”

“Everything I do is pragmatic,” Soren said, flatly, in what was meant to be a joke, as he wiped off Ike’s hand finger-by-finger. He bristled only a little bit when Ike raised the same hand to his cheek.

“That’s much better,” said Ike, and Soren bowed his head to conceal a smile.

Outside the cave jagged shadows danced in the blizzard fog. The shrill howl of some distant creature caught on the winds. Countless days wandering this wild and hostile world lay before them for a reward in foreign coin, with no way for them to distinguish between a pittance and a fortune, and no reason for them to care. Soren settled back against Ike’s chest, closed his eyes, and let himself be lulled by the storm. 


End file.
